OMS SafeHarbor has been building browser-based software applications for ten years. We started out calling this model browser-based-software. Then someone came up with the TLA (Three Letter Acronym) for Application Service Provider (ASP), and now the domain is commonly referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS).

Regardless of how you describe the general environment, we are all still talking about code interacting with a database or datastore. Software engineers, constantly seeking yet another acronym, call this a Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern.

So what does this have to do with ACID transactions? The browser-based, MVC, world of the Internet is asynchronous (HTTP is an asynchronous protocol) and decidedly not ACID.

ACID is a way to describe the properties of a single database transaction.

A = Atomic

C = Consistent

I = Isolated

D = Durable

We are bringing a new set of products to our content management, software distribution and license management customers that bring ACID transactions out of the database realm and into the web-based, ASP, SaaS domain of software applications.

When we talk about a transaction that is ACID, we described it as a transaction that completes, or doesn’t; nothing gets left half-done. The transaction looks the same every time and it is predictable. The transaction can be executed, processed, tracked, traced, and audited singularly. The transaction, once complete, it can’t be changed or undone. It completion can be reported on with precision and accuracy and historically referenced.

If SaaS implementations were more ACID, instead of a 404 file-not-found error when you clicked on a dead link, you might simply stay on the page you started from and receive a simple notification in another window.

Now imagine a asking for a software download or generating a license file for your CAD tools, and imagine that as an ACID transaction; you start the download and are guaranteed its Durable completion!

As you think about delivering you software, licenses, entitlements and services via the web, you should also think about ACID transaction perspectives. Atomic, Consistent, Isolated and Durable, make sure your transactions pass the ACID test!

Find out more about software distribution, CRM, licensing and entitlement management by visiting OMS SafeHarbor.